Saturday, February 21, 2009

Save Our Net Now

I've mentioned this several times before but the deadline is fast approaching for you to make your voice heard on Net Neutrality. Today I got the note below from Antonia Zerbisias and decided to pass it along just in case there is anyone left out there who doesn't know yet.

Below you'll find a note from the energetic media activists at Save Our Net who are fighting to prevent Internet service providers from deciding whose content gets priority and bandwidth on the Internet.

But before I get to that, I want to explain why this is important, and why you must take a moment to click on a link below and fire off a letter to the CRTC. The deadline is Monday and it is VERY IMPORTANT that as many citizens as possible do this or one day, when you're trying to watch a YouTube say, and find your Internet service has ground to a snail's pace, you'll finally get what New Neutrality is all about and why it was so important that you fought to ensure it.

Here's a very simplistic analogy to help you understand:

Imagine a highway, many lanes, everybody can go on any one of them. Now imagine that certain huge corporations decide that, since they control the on/off ramps, they'll decide who gets to go in the passing lane, who gets the slow lane, who gets the lane that's always under construction, who gets the lane with the potholes and speed bumps.

Those that can afford to pay for the passing lanes, take the passing lanes. All of them. With big heavy 18-wheelers souped up with jet engines.

Smaller companies, and individuals, including bloggers, web innovators, independent filmmakers, you name it, get pushed off to the slower, more crowded and crumbling lanes, where they stop and start as dictated by the corporations which own the on and off-ramps.

President Obama just signed an economic stimulus bill dedicating $7.2 billion to get fast, affordable, neutral Internet to the nearly half of American homes that don't have it! This is a huge opportunity for us to press for similar actions in Canada, but it also highlights that Canada is moving in the wrong direction.

The longer we allow ISPs to throttle Internet traffic, the more we risk becoming the backwater of online innovation and free speech as web entrepreneurs increasingly migrate to theU.S.

In the space of just over 10 days, nearly 3,500 of you have written the CRTC demanding they put a stop to discriminatory Internet throttling by big ISPs. This is an impressive number, but we need to get 1,000 more if we are to sway the CRTC. We can do it!

We have just a few days left until the CRTC's submission DEADLINE on MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd. We are asking that you please take a moment to reach out to friends and family before it's too late. We have a great informative video for you to use: http://saveournet.ca/why